Translations
by Maik

Last night I drank and I was happy, Today I'm sick as I can be; Oh, who cares if you're raw Mother Nature, Why won't you take pity on me? I had a dream that I was sober, Angels were singing in the air; Then I woke up inside a black body, With a shining star caught in my hair My mother said, fly a little lower, My wife told me, sink to the floor of the sea; But I live in the eye of the cyclone Up and down are the same thing to me. And people, they work to get their money, Watching the world passing by outside; In our army, we're all kamikazes, We've got no time to waste on this ride We cry out Banzai! and become one with god; Everything gone, we stand in the debris; We're all here in the eye of the cyclone With the snow lions, peaceful and free. Today, again!, I will be happy Tomorrow sick as I can be; I don't care if you're raw Mother Nature, Why won't you take pity on me? Please remember me, raw Mother Nature ... I'm your own flesh and blood, can't you see?

Translation Notes

Chroist ... any suggestions on "ìàòü - ñûðà ïðèðîäà"? How about "è Áîã ñ íåé, ñ òâåðäüþ"?? I've reached and passed the creaky limits of my Russian linghitude! I checked Dji's review of "Snow Lion" to see if any of the Bodhisattvas had any thoughts on this issue, but nary a suggestion was found ... BUT ... I canclear up one thing. Dji's review sez "reportedly, he'd like to haul the Chieftans into a studio and call them Akvarium." That is true, and the quote can be traced back to me. I interviewed BG back in March of '97 for a world music mag, and he asked what other kinds of music I'd reviewed. I mentioned that the Chieftains had been in town for St. Patrick's just a week or so earlier, and BG snapped to attention. "You lucky ...," he said, then asked all about the show. The Chieftains had just released "The Long Black Veil," then the most recent of several albums in which they boosted their commercial appeal by inviting mainstream artists like the Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, Sinead O'Connor, Elvis Costello, and so on to sit in with them on different tracks. I suggested that, with his weakness for Celtic sounds, BG was a prime candidatefor such a collaboration. He said something like (I'll have to dig up the clip to find the exact quote), "I'm not a good player, so they'd have no use for me. But if they would come into the studio and record with me..." I made a joke to the effect that he'd revealed the next incarnation of Aquarium, and he laughed and said, "Stranger things have happened." Which in the case of Aquarium is, of course, entirely true.